The road ahead will require navigating complex financial challenges while fostering job creation and sustainable development in the region.
The PDP looks a distant third in the race, observes Mohammed Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir politics.
In a significant political development, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah announced on Thursday that an alliance with the Congress was finalised for all 90 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir, which is going for its maiden assembly polls after being reorganised into a Union Territory.
Of the 26 seats for which elections were held on October 4, results of 20 seats have been declared so far, they said.
"I'm amazed channels are bothering with exit polls especially after the fiasco of the recent general elections. I'm ignoring all the noise on channels, social media, WhatsApp etc. because the only numbers that matter will be revealed on the 8th of Oct. The rest is just time pass," Abdullah, a former chief minister, wrote on X.
The results of the assembly elections will be announced on October 8.
Chief minister-designate Omar Abdullah met Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to present letters of support from coalition partners, shortly after the Congress officially extended its backing to the party.
Both candidates have shifted from their traditional constituencies - Sadhotra from Marh and Sharma from Akhnoor - after these two segments were reserved for Scheduled Castes.
"Give up arms and come for talks or our forces will hunt you down," the home minister said in election rallies in Jammu and Kashmir.
On the Opposition's poll promise of statehood restoration, Shah said, "I want to ask Farooq Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi, who is going to restore the statehood. You cannot give it back. Why are you misleading the public?"
The Jammu Development Authority (JDA) demolished a dozen shops belonging to displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu city, allegedly without issuing notices, sparking protests from various sections demanding action against the officials. The shops were located on JDA land and had been built by displaced Kashmiri Pandits near the Muthi camp three decades ago. The demolition drive sparked outrage from political parties, including the BJP, PDP and Apni Party, and several Kashmir Pandit organisations, who condemned the JDA's action and called for the construction of new shops to help the displaced community sustain their livelihood.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) is poised to form the first elected government in Jammu and Kashmir, having secured a victory in the assembly elections by securing 49 out of 90 seats on which polls were held for the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 five years ago.
Abdullah said they are claiming that terrorism is over but the ground situation shows that it has increased in otherwise peaceful Jammu region.
National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah Tuesday asserted that there should be no "fiddling" with the mandate of people in Jammu and Kashmir, and the Centre and the Raj Bhavan must not indulge in any "machinations".
The Congress was fighting the elections in a pre-poll alliance with National Conference and had fielded 32 candidates, mostly in Jammu region, compared to 51 by the regional party.
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah was sworn in as the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, the first elected government in the Union Territory since 2019 when Article 370 was abrogated.
'Everyone is unhappy with the lieutenant governor's administration, which is ignorant, high-handed, and inaccessible.'
The withdrawal of the candidature by DPAP leaders on the last day on August 30 is seen as a boost to the NC-Congress alliance.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday clinched a stunning hat-trick win in Haryana overcoming anti-incumbency and dashing Congress' hopes of a comeback while the National Conference-Congress combine pulled off a spectacular victory in maiden elections in Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370 in 2019.
Every trick in the trade is being tried unabashedly.
In simple arithmetical terms every possible 'arrangement' is being made to deny a majority to its rivals. A split verdict would hand a vital advantage to the BJP which is adept at extracting the best out of such a situation, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the distinguished commentator on Kashmir affairs.
'If the country felt very strongly about the BJP, then why did the country not put money where the mouth is?'
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
'We put the seed of BJP's ideology in Jammu, watered it, nurtured it for four decades and when it was time to reap the fruits of those efforts, the fruits are being sold out to the very same people who worked hard to uproot this tree.' 'Shockingly, our own people are letting this happen and nobody from Delhi bothers to even listen to us.'
'My mother feels it will be tough and emotional for her to enter an assembly which has essentially been reduced to a municipality now.' 'My opinion is that even if it is a municipality one cannot cede that space to the BJP.'
What should have been a direct contest between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress in the Ladakh Lok Sabha constituency is now a three-corner fight with an alliance of local groups fielding an Independent to challenge the national parties.
The National Conference and the Congress have started back-channel talks to try and form a coalition to form a government in the light of the fractured verdict. NC sources said such an arrangement would best serve the interests of both the parties and the state. National Conference president Omar Abdullah, who is seen as the prospective chief minister, said earlier in the day that the NC will approach the Congress, which is a like-minded party, to form the government.
As suspense over government formation in Jammu and Kashmir continued, Peoples Democratic Party on Monday said the idea of a grand alliance with the National Conference and Congress was an option for forming a stable government in the state.
Union Minister and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah on Tuesday ruled out any problems with ally Congress in Jammu and Kashmir.
In a major setback to ruling National Conference-Congress coalition in Jammu and Kashmir, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday shared the six Lok Sabha seats in the state as two Union ministers, including Farooq Abdullah, bit the dust.
"I cannot say whether the crisis has been averted," Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said on Thursday about the tussle with his coalition partner, the Congress, over the creation of new administrative units in the state.
The Congress will be a part of the government, Omar said, emerging from a meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on Tuesday. The meeting took place in the backdrop of both National Conference and the People's Democratic Party initially showing the inclination to form the government in the state and Congress having a rethink on whether it should support NC or PDP.
Any decision to include "non-locals" in electoral rolls in Jammu and Kashmir is unacceptable and would be contested by all means, including in court, Nation Conference president Farooq Abdullah said on Monday after a meeting of nine parties over the issue.
The PDP led by former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has decided to stay away from the delimitation process, saying the body lacks 'constitutional and legal mandate' and is part of the overall process of political disempowerment of people of Jammu and Kashmir.
MLAs in Jammu and Kashmir continued their dharna outside the state legislature for the third day on Tuesday demanding dismissal of the government and imposing President's rule, claiming that the NC-Congress government's policies were putting at risk the security of the state.
As early trends indicated a hung assembly in Jammu and Kashmir, senior Congress leader Karan Singh on Sunday favoured an alliance between the Congress and the National Conference, arguing that the two parties were 'ideologically more compatible'. "Personally, I feel that an NC-Congress alliance will be more compatible. This is my personal view," Singh said. But a decision will be taken by the Party's central leadership, he added.
Nearly two years after the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two UTs and revocation of its special status, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held talks with top political leaders from the erstwhile state, and said the Centre's priority is to strengthen grassroots democracy there for which delimitation has to happen quickly so that polls can be held.
The parties reiterated that they are bound, wholly, by the contents of the 'Gupkar Declaration', a resolution issued after an all-party meeting on August 4, 2019 at the Gupkar residence of NC president Farooq Abdullah.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Tuesday asserted that his party would continue its alliance with the Congress party.
The constituency had recorded an abysmal 7.13 per cent voter turnout, the lowest ever in its history.
The newly-elected MLAs of Peoples Democratic Party have voiced apprehensions about the party's future in the Valley if it was to enter into an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party for government formation in Jammu and Kashmir.
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